All Posts Tagged ‘Russia’

We are under the tyranny of the Football World Cup ( or Soccer, if you prefer). We have Football in TV every day from the afternoon to the evening. And like it or not it’s on the news, in the conversations, in the store windows, and everywhere…

The championship has begun in Russia with many surprises.

The biggest stars are not shining as it was expected of them. For instance, Leo Messi, probably the best player in the world, missed miserably a penalty and was unable to deliver a single goal in a match against a team that never before in history had been qualified for the championship: Iceland.

Among the players who are now playing in Russia, there are some multi millionaires and famous and others unknown, with modest salaries. On the field it seems that the less known are fighting with more enthusiasm, at least in these firsts matches.

The current world champion, Germany, lost its match against Mexico. Argentina tied with Iceland and Brazil, according to the specialists, the best team in the championship, only could tie with Switzerland, a team little known beyond its borders, but whose players were not intimidated by the brazilian stars. Good for them!

I can follow the championship by listening to the noises at the public square under my windows. when there is a match all is quiet: everybody is at home watching tv. When there is a break, the streets come alive and from the square you can hear the noises and shouts of kids playing…yes: football.

Pick a divisive issue currently in the news. Write a two-part post in which you take on two personas and approach the topic from both sides.

– What are you reading about?

– Russia just granted Snowden one year asylum. He already left the airport.

– Good. Now he can sell all his secrets to that big democrat: Vladimir Putin.

– Don’t be so harsh on him, he certainly couldn’t go back home after what he did. But thanks him we know how the US Government was spying on us. Did you read about the XKeyscore program, that apparently gives NSA analysts access to virtually any Internet browsing activity around the world?

– It wasn’t called Prism?

– No. This is a new one. Well, a new known one, again published by The Guardian apparently from Snowden data.

– I don’t like the US Government spying on us, but I think Snowden is a traitor and he has gone where US traitors used to go back in the Cold War times: to Moscow. Not precisely a land of liberties with Putin there.

– But without him talking about this surveillance programs we wouldn’t know about Prism, XKeyscore and the potential abuses it can happen with that programs. And then, now the image is that the US is the country spying on its own people and on the whole world, while Russia is protecting the whistleblower, the land of liberty for him.

– Let’s see what Snowden thinks about liberties after a year in Russia.

– You know? I’m so tired about this whole thing! Prism, Xkeyscore… I don’t mind the names, I don’t mind the millions of data surveyed. I’m overwhelmed about the whole thing. I have nothing to hide. I’ll continue to live as before all this happened.

– Me to. But remember, I’m a foreigner and I’m blogging this conversation, so let’s go to a safer field to save time to our friends at NSA: Did you watch the Swimming World Championships in Barcelona? There were guys diving from a 88.5 feet high platform. Spectacular.